Hasta La Ideas

Stone bleachers climb onto the roof of this cultural centre in Molde, Norway, by Danish architects 3XN, creating open-air seating for visitors to the jazz festival hosted there each year (+ slideshow).

Located in the heart of the small town, the Plassen Cultural Centre will become a hub for the July event, which is one of the oldest jazz festivals in Europe and attracts around 100,000 tourists.

The external staircase adjoins the northern wall of the building, linking the neighbouring market square with a roof terrace that accommodates a sunbathing lounge, an exhibition area and a sculpture garden.

The entrance to the three-storey building is positioned at the foot of the stairs, and leads into a concert hall through a triple-height atrium.

“There must be room for celebration in this building, both inside, on top of it and around it,” said 3XN’s Jan Ammundsen.”It must be able to withstand being invaded by happy people throughout the year, year after year.”

A jazz museum is also included inside the building, alongside a library, a small gallery and a series of rehearsal studios.

The architects used granite for all the exterior surfaces, which they claim “gives the building a bright monochrome expression” that contrasts with the “warm red light” that shines out through the windows.

Other projects completed by 3XN in the last year include another culture centre with glass hills outlined on its facade and an experimental food laboratory.

See more stories about 3XN »

See more buildings in Norway »

Photography is by Adam Mork.

Here’s a project description from 3XN:

Cultural Center ‘Plassen’
Molde, Norway

‘Plassen’ (meaning the square or the space in Norwegian) is formed like a giant paper cutting. The building literally grabs the city square, Gørvellplassen. It cuts and folds the surface, resulting in a building where the inside and the outside, the surface and the roof, merges into one. This compact and well-functioning structure with its highly usable and easy accessible areas maintains the public space of Gørvellplassen, and even enhances the flexibility of the square.

The flowing transition between the stages, the gallery, and the café creates the illusion that the inner and outer spaces are one. Emphasizing this principle, the windows of the building can be described as wide horizontal openings allowing plenty the daylight, and providing a splendid view from within as well as from the outside. The relatively low-rise building consists of just three floors that make room for the local theatre, ‘Teatret Vårt’, ‘The Bjørnson Festival’ and Molde’s International Jazz festival which attracts famous jazz musicians and a wide audience when it takes place every summer in July.

Contemporary and innovative, but at the same time simple and blunt, the design of the building resists any excesses. Hence, it is in accordance with the surrounding sober and regularly shaped buildings. Use of the same local stone on both walls and floors, creates a calm atmosphere. The exterior is dominated by the broad staircase. This created a lot of space for people to rest in nice weather. The staircase provides the jazz festival with a big open-air stage that may become a new focal point for the town.

The heart of the building is the main concert hall, solved in “box in box” room, to ensure optimal acoustics. Therefore, the concert hall is rectangular and stripped of fancy shapes. Finally, ‘Plassen’ contains a library and an arts centre with a gallery facing the upper square. The library is situated in the eastern wing with a strong exposure to the square.

Architect: 3XN
Project type: Cultural Center
Functions: Theatre, concert hall, café, gallery, library
Client: Molde Kulturbyg AB

Construction: 2009 – 2012
Official Opening: 14th of July, 2012
Size: 5,800 m2
Cost: 187 mio. norwegian kroner / / 25 mio euros
Engineer: Norconsult AS

Site plan – click above for larger image

Ground floor plan – click above for larger image

First floor plan – click above for larger image

Second floor plan – click above for larger image

Long section – click above for larger image

Cross section – click above for larger image

North elevation – click above for larger image

East elevation – click above for larger image

South elevation – click above for larger image

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by 3XN appeared first on Dezeen.

This art museum by architect Renzo Piano straddles a canal in Oslo’s harbour (+ slideshow).

Named the Astrup Fearnley Museet, the museum of contemporary art opened to the public this weekend and was completed in collaboration with local firm Narud-Stokke-Wiig.

A curving roof of fritted glass unites the three timber-clad buildings that comprise the complex, while two bridges cross the canal to link them at ground level.

The architects selected naturally weathered timber for the facades and interiors of each block, to reference the traditional Scandinavian construction of local buildings and boats.

Ten galleries are split between the three buildings, and one block also contains offices within four of its upper storeys.

Between the buildings, promenades stretch along both sides of the canal to lead to a sculpture park and sandy beach on the southern side of the water and a local ferry terminal on the northern side.

Other recent projects by Renzo Piano include The Shard, which opened earlier this summer, and the new wing at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston.

See all our stories about Piano here, including a past interview with the architect.

Photography is by Nic Lehoux.

Here’s a project description from Renzo Piano Building Workshop:

The Tjuvholmen development commissioned by Selvaag Gruppen / Aspelin Ramm Gruppen in Oslo is located southwest of the centre of the city and is a continuation of the Aker Brygge development built in the 90’s. The site of the Tjuvholmen project is one of the most beautiful places in Oslo. The project will transform the formerly closed harbour into a public area connecting the Fjord and the centre of the city.

The RPBW project is on the western part of this development and consists of cultural programmatic elements as part of an agreement with the City of Oslo: the project includes 3 different buildings under a unique glass roof, one for Offices and Art exhibition and two exclusively for the Art Museum, the landscape design with bridges over the new canals and a small Sculpture Park.

The urban design creates a visual link between this cultural platform and the City centre of Oslo, developing the visual axis from Aker Brygge to the new complex. The integration of Art related activities in all three buildings and the mix with offices and leisure activities, makes the complex a vibrant part of the new urban fabric that will attract a very broad public.

The Design

Overlooking the fjord, it seems inevitable to continue the sightline from the city along the Aker Brygge promenade to the far end of the new development. The entire promenade along the sea will be 800m long. Almost half of that length will consist of the new promenade of the project. The promenade will start at the bridge on the dock at Aker Brygge and continue along Strandhagen over to Skjaeret until it ends at a floating dock, from where a ferry may depart to other destinations along the inner Oslo Fjord.

The promenade along the canal will provide to the visitors the visual contact with the sea and nature, as an important experience of the journey.

On Skjaeret, the promenade is embraced by the building complex and the location of the art building along the canal, instead of along the sea as proposed by the city’s zoning plan, creates an active dialogue between the 3 buildings.

Between the art museum and the sea a softly undulating sculpture park fills the rest of Skjaeret and finishes in a sandy beach, protected by the wind and from the waves. It will be an open space for children and their parents to play and swim, to enjoy nature and the sea.

A café is planned alongside the beach with a facade that can be opened during good weather to enjoy views of the park and the wind gusts from the fjords as well as to extend the relatively small internal area of the café.

Across the canal over a wide bridge that links the two opposite banks, visitors will find the entrance to the other exhibition spaces at the quay level. A wide stair between them leads up to an urban Piazza where café’s, shops and entrances to other functions find their place.

Visitors will be able to continue along the quay of the canal to the tip of the new development which allows a spectacular view out over the Fjord, but also back to the centre of Oslo.

The Roof

The roof is a curved surface which covers all three buildings to emphasize their interaction as a cultural destination and the architecture of the complex.

The design strongly identifies the project. Its curved shape, formed by laminated wood beams, crosses the canal between the buildings. The beams are supported by slender steel columns, reinforced with cable rigging, which refer to the maritime character of the site.

The roof geometrical shape is derived from a section of a toroid and it slopes down towards the sea. On Skjaeret, the roof almost touches ground in the Park, over a small water pond that prevents people to climb on the glass.

The roof surface is fully glazed and a ceramic fritting gives the glass the right solidness and the right transparency where needed. Some of the exhibition spaces, the museum lobby as well as the office atrium will receive daylight through the roof.

The edges of the roof extend generously outwards to reinforce the lightness of this glass plane and while obstructing daylight to a minimum, giving protection from rain and wind.

Exhibition Spaces

The project will have different kinds of exhibition spaces: visiting the museum will be a cultural journey going from one space to the other. This journey includes all three buildings on both sides of the canal and will bring the visitor through a series of 10 rooms, each with a different ceiling height, material and shape.

The exhibition spaces of the Art Museum on the north side of the canal will house the permanent contemporary art collection, which expands at ground level under the office building. This part is an open flexible space, extending under the Tjuvholmen Allee and the main stair between the quay level and the upper Piazza. In this area also educational activities of the museum will take place.

Site plan – click above for larger image

The building on Skjaeret, on the south side of the canal, will be for the temporary exhibition. The main exhibition space consists of two floors: one floor at ground level and one on the mezzanine, with natural light from a spectacular skylight in the roof. On the second floor a generous roof terrace will allow for the placement of sculptures outside. A small cafè is located next to the lobby and its terrace extends to Park and the beach.

Cross section – click above for larger image

Office Building

The office building along the Tjuvholmen Allee, has four floors and a mezzanine under the roof. A naturally lit atrium in the centre of the building connects the office floors. All floors will be rented to one tenant, which was very much involved the layout of the offices. The conference rooms as well as the common areas for the occupants are on the upper floors, taking best advance of the views and the terraces on these floors.

Long section – click above for larger image

Materials

The materials for the new buildings are few in order to emphasize the unity of the complex and are subdued to emphasize the roof as the most important architectural element.

The roof structure will be made of laminated wood beams, sometimes with steel elements, supported by steel columns. The glass of the roof has a dotted pattern, resulting in a light colour, a white ceramic frit that covers the whole surface reducing the transparency of the glass by 40%.

Elevation – click above for larger image

The facades have glazed areas on the ground floor where the public view is desired. The glazing is executed with low iron glass, as much as possible without coatings to enhance the transparency and to minimize the discoloration of the light into the exhibition spaces. The office glazing and less public facades may need coatings, with internal shades for glare control.

External sun shades on the facades, will make them more dynamic and will bring some color to the monochromatic wood facade.

Cross section detail – click above for larger image

The lobby to the temporary art space is completely glazed and allows the visual contact with the park and the sea, even from the Piazza on the Tjuvholmen Allee.

Naturally weathered timber was selected for the opaque parts of the façade (Aspen), which in a short time acquires a soft silver-grey color due to its exposure to the weather, The wood planks have a particular shape and the gaps between the planks increase where ventilation of the buildings is required.

Sectional perspective – click above for larger image

The use of wood as a material for structural elements, for the bridges, exterior paving and in the interiors, follows Scandinavian traditions. The use of wood is also a reference to the materials used for boats, while the slender steel elements in the bridges and the columns relate to the masts in the Oslo harbour, anchoring the building complex even more in its location.

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Renzo Piano Building Workshop appeared first on Dezeen.

A sharply pointed gable rises above the walls of this stone funeral chapel in a small German town by Bayer & Strobel Architekten (+ slideshow).

The triangular profile frames the interior of a double-height funeral hall, which is lit from above by a long narrow skylight.

“To do justice to its significance within the cemetery complex, the funeral is clearly marked with a gabled roof,” said architect Peter Strobel. “This creates an interior that feels dignified and solemn as well as simple and appropriate to its purpose.”

Glass walls allow guests to look out from the hall to two private courtyards, which are enclosed behind the stone facade of the building.

Strobel explained how the walls “block off the cemetery from the street, enclosing it as a place of peace and contemplation.”

Other rooms in the building are arranged in a single block that runs alongside the chapel, providing a series of smaller meeting rooms and waiting areas.

Other memorial buildings we’ve featured include a boulder-shaped mausoleum in Mexico and a chapel with a copper roof in Finland.

See more chapels on Dezeen »

Photography is by the architects.

Project Details:

Competition: 10/2008 – Bayer & Strobel Architekten with jbbug Landschaftsarchitekten
Project start: 06/2009

Start of construction: 01/2011
Completion: 05/2012

Client: Stadt Ingelheim am Rhein
Architect: Bayer & Strobel Architekten

Co-worker: Christian Köhler
Landscape architect: jbbug Johannes Böttger Büro Urbane Gestalt

Structural engineer: Ingenieur-Gesellschaft Tragwerk Angnes + Rohde mbH
Mechanical services: Planungsbüro Stoffel

Ground floor plan – click above for larger image

Cross section one – click above for larger image

Cross section two  – click above for larger image

Long section – click above for larger image

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by Bayer & Strobel Architekten appeared first on Dezeen.

An undulating golden plane blankets the new Islamic art galleries at the Musée du Louvre in Paris, which opened to the public this weekend (+ slideshow).

Designed by Italian architect Mario Bellini and his French colleague Rudy Ricciotti, the new gallery wing is surrounded by the neoclassical facades of the museum’s Cour Visconti courtyard and has two of its three floors submerged beneath the ground.

Tessellated glass triangles create the self-supporting curves of the roof and are sandwiched between two sheets of anodized aluminium mesh to create a golden surface both inside and out.

Above: photograph is by Philippe Ruault

“It’s more like an enormous veil that undulates as if suspended in the wind, almost touching the ground of the courtyard at one point, but without totally encumbering it or contaminating the historic facades” said Bellini.

Beneath the roof, two exhibition floors accommodate over 2500 works by Islamic artists from the seventh to the nineteenth century.

Glass facades surround the galleries at ground floor level, so visitors can look out at the surrounding architecture, while the underground galleries are filled with artworks that are sensitive to light.

The layout of the galleries is designed as a loop, which connects with the existing routes of the museum and encourages visitors to enter the new wing.

A third floor is located beneath the galleries to house technical facilities and storage areas.

We’ve noticed a trend in golden buildings recently. See more of them here »

Section – click above for larger image

Photography is by Antoine Mongodin, apart from where otherwise stated.

See more stories about art galleries on Dezeen »

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by Mario Bellini and Rudy Ricciotti appeared first on Dezeen.

A perforated metal box encases the concrete visitor centre for the Atapuerca archaeological site in northern Spain by architects a3gm and Mata y asociados (+ slideshow).

The Atapuerca UNESCO World Heritage site in Burgos, northern Spain, is home to the fossilised remains of Europe’s earliest humans.

The concrete visitor centre is inserted inside a larger enclosure of perforated metal squares.

The patterns in the metal box are designed to “resemble the piles of straw bales and the dark clumps of trees in the area,” the architects told Dezeen.

Inside the visitor centre are classrooms, lecture halls, an information area and a cafeteria, as well as administrative areas.

Outside the building is a pond of oxygen-producing plants which processes water from the centre and nearby archaeological park.

A canopy of vines will eventually grow on a metal grid to cover the car park.

Earlier this year we posted a special feature about recently completed public buildings in Spain, including museums, town halls and markets – see it here.

See all our stories about Spain »
See all our stories about cultural buildings »

Photographs are by Mata y asociados.

Here’s some more information from the architects:

Centro de Recepción de Visitantes, Atepuerca, Burgos
Visitors Centre, Atapeurca, Burgos
Architects: a3gm + Mata y asociados
Location: Atapuerca, Burgos, Spain

Concept: Jesús Alba Elías, Laura García Juárez, Jesús García Vivar, Smara Gonçalves Diez, Carlos Miranda Barroso
Project and Construction: Salvador Mata Pérez
Collaborators: Myriam Vizacaíno Bassi, Javier Encinas Hernández, Alberto López del Río, David Muñoz de la Calle, Luis Antonio Pahíno Rodríguez, architects; Tomás R. Dientes, quantity surveyor

Engineers: GHESA, A2V Ingenieros
Environmental Engineering: HYDRAInvestor: Junta de Castilla y León. Consejería de Cultura y Turismo. Dirección General de Patrimonio Cultural

Project Area: 1.625 m2 sqm
Project Year: 2006, 2009
Construction Year: 2009–2010

Contractors: SACYR S.A.U., NUCLEO S.A.
Budget: EUR 3,500,000

The purpose of the project is the definition of the Visitors Centre of Atapuerca paleoanthropological site and the rearrangement of the environment with service and relationship areas with the existing archaeological park.

The proposal starts off from a double reading of the building: from its presence in the landscape and its inner functions.

In between proposed a relationship of a certain lack of boundaries in the band between the inner chamber and the outer shell is a space that expands on the main access and allowing expansion of the cafeteria and an extension of the exhibition area.

The image of the building initially refers to the volumes present in the surrounding landscape: natural elements ordained by human intervention, such as straw piles or clumps of trees.

Behind this reading of the envelope that filters and qualifies both the perception of the building inside and outside the image from the inside of the rooms, the direct sunlight, wind, appears logical scale and performance of a building exchange visitors and cultural flows.

The interior facades are conceived as a volume cut in plan to allow expansion in the interstitial space, and in section to introduce daylight and express to the outside the performance of the parts.

The Centre also seeks metaphorical proximity to the site, that effectively contributes to the production of a new architectural organism, by recreating a part of the building that belongs to the earth (stereotomic) and one that is detached from it (tectonic), a mask protection as light as possible wrapping the whole.

In this sense, the building is designed as a big concrete box – petrous nature – pierced by large skylights, and an outer perforated net that wraps and covers acting as a second skin.

Site plan

The interstitial space generated between the net and the concrete box recalls the archaeological site workspace. At the building entrance this space is conceived as a rest area, and the one of the opposite corner as a multipurpose outside area.

Plan – click above for larger image

The indoor exhibition space chooses a route between major structural concrete screens in addition to the presence of the lecture halls. At the entrance there is a space for information and sales of publications, a cafeteria and administrative and service areas.

Ground floor plan – click above for larger image

The classrooms are designed as modular elements with multiple possibilities of use and relationship between the polyvalent area and the exhibition area, from a small room for about 25 people to a conference hall for 100 people.

Upper floor plan – click above for larger image

The lightweight exterior enclosure has a discontinuous character, it is punctured or disappears in singular points as the entrance plaza and the gazebo.

Roof plan – click above for larger image

It generates a variable section in the access area with very strong relationships between the open space of the square and the space of the terrace-gazebo, in contrast to the austerity of the outer box.

Section – click above for larger image

To solve the necessarily large car parking area, the idea of nature is recreated again through metal elements, metaphors of trees, on which in the future vines will grow to shape the final camouflage of parked vehicles.

Section – click above for larger image

A light canopy and a wooden grid between the car park and the building will form an exterior square for outdoor activities.

North elevation – click above for larger image

Outside a pond of macrophytes solves the sanitation of both the Visitor Center and the next Archaeological Park.

East elevation – click above for larger image

The bed of the pond is a biotechnology system that mimics the process of self-purification that spontaneously occur in natural wetlands, based on the use of plants and other aquatic lower organisms.

South elevation – click above for larger image

This system is in perfect harmony with the new policies and sustainable development needs, providing high purifying efficiency with low operating and maintenance costs. The visit to the projected pond finally has become part of the Visitors Center’s educational route.

West elevation – click above for larger image

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by a3gm + Mata y asociados appeared first on Dezeen.